RT Unpublished Material
T1 Environmental assessment of biorefinery processes for the valorization of lignocellulosic wastes into oligosaccharides
A1 González García, Sara
A1 Gullón Estévez, Beatriz
A1 Moreira Vilar, María Teresa
K1 Sugar beet pulp
K1 Environmental profile
K1 Life Cycle Assessment
K1 Pectin-derived oligosachharides
K1 Prebiotics
K1 Sugar industry
AB One of the most relevant goals in the application of circular economy to the industrial activities is to convert low-value side streams into more valuable products. In this sense, the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into biofuels and chemicals is a major challenge not only from the technological but also from the economic and environmental perspectives.In this study, the production of pectin-derived oligosaccharides (POS) from sugar beet pulp (SBP), promising candidates for prebiotic properties, was assessed from an environmental perspective usingthe Life Cycle Assessment methodology under a cradle-to-gate approach. Two different scenarios at pilot scale were considered: Scenario 1 based on conventional autohydrolysis at high temperature and Scenario 2 based on enzymatic hydrolysis.The outcomes of this environmental study are highly dependent on the production yield of the target compounds (POS) and the valorisation strategy considered. In fact, the POS yield of the autohydrolysis approach is around 20% higher in the enzymatic one. According to the results, Scenario 1 reports the worst results when a functional unit based on the amount of valorised material (100 kg of oven-dried SBP) is managed. However, the profile entirely changes when a unit based onthe economic revenue (1 €) is considered. Therefore, attention should be paid on the selection of the functional unit since decision making strategies should highly depend on it.Without waiting for the opportunity to conduct LCA of already-developed processes of the biorefinery system, the development of new alternatives must be carried out with sustainability in mind and the proposal of valorisation strategies for secondary streams should include the analysis of the environmental impacts associated to each alternative, even at the pilot plant stage
YR 2018
FD 2018
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/15290
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/15290
LA eng
NO This is the preprint of the following article: [Gonzalez-Garcia, S., et al., Environmental assessment of biorefinery processes for the valorization of lignocellulosic wastes into oligosaccharides, Journal of Cleaner Production (2017)], which has been published in final form at [http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.02.164]
NO This research has been partially supported by a project granted by Xunta de Galicia (project ref. ED431F 2016/001), by the BBVA programme “2015 edition of the BBVA Foundation Grants for Researchers and Cultural Creators” (2015-PO027) and the EU project (STAR-ProBio). Dr. S. González-Garcia and Dr. B. Gullón would like to express her gratitude to the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity for financial support (Grant references RYC-2014-14984 and FPDI-2013-17341, respectively). The authors belong to the Galician Competitive Research Group GRC 2013-032, programme co-funded by FEDER as well as to CRETUS (AGRUP2015/02)
DS Minerva
RD 28 abr 2026